What is phishing? How scammers trick you (and how to avoid it)
Did you know that phishing is one of the most common tactics hackers use to take over accounts?
While cyber criminals began moving away from phishing to alternative access methods like vishing, callback phishing, and help desk social engineering attacks. It’s still extremely effective and you should know how to protect yourself from it.
Here’s what you need to know.
What is phishing?
Phishing is when cyber criminals send messages pretending to be real companies in order to trick people into revealing personal information like their email address, passwords, phone number, credit card numbers, etc.
Most of the time attackers send these types of attacks via email, but SMS and social media are becoming more and more common.
How can you protect yourself against it?
Thankfully, there are a few effective ways to protect yourself. Here’s what you should do:
1) Use antivirus software
Antivirus software is essential for protecting your computer against info stealers (malware that steals information from your computer without your knowledge or consent). Many antivirus solutions also have browser extensions that help protect you from visiting phishing websites (often spoofed domains).
2) Use a social media security tool
Social media security tools are applications that actively monitor your social media profiles for suspicious activity like unfamiliar login attempts and changes to your account settings like changing your email and password and recovery email and phone number.
That said, there are social media security tools like Spikerz that also…
- Monitor social media for impersonators infringing in your copyrighted brand assets and employees
- Monitor profiles for suspicious activity like unusual login patterns and changes to account settings and blocks them
- Analyze comments and direct messages for phishing and spam
- Monitor for data breaches that expose personal information like your email, phone number, and passwords
- Backup your social media content
- Enable 2FA for teams so you can share codes between team members without the need to reach out to the person with auth app codes
- Manage and centralize user access so you have complete visibility on who has access to your accounts
3) Educate yourself on cybersecurity awareness
Educating yourself on how cyber criminals operate is one of the most effective ways to protect yourself. And the best thing is you don’t have to become an expert to understand what you have to do and avoid. It’s actually a relatively simple task that provides significant long term benefits.
4) Protect your passwords
Never share passwords over the phone, email or direct messages. Legitimate institutions will never request login credentials via these methods, they will pretty much always redirect you to their website instead. If you must share passwords, use a password manager or a secure, company approved service.
5) Learn to recognize phishing messages
There are many ways to identify phishing messages. For example every phishing email typically includes at least one of these telltale red flags:
- They often request sensitive information: Legitimate businesses will never ask for credit card details, social security numbers, or passwords via email. If you receive such a request, it's almost certainly a scam.
- Check the sender's domain carefully: Scammers frequently impersonate well-known companies, but they'll use slightly modified domain names. Always verify the "from" field matches the official company domain exactly.
- Examine links carefully: Phishing attempts often use domains that look almost identical to legitimate websites, perhaps changing just one letter or adding a subtle variation. Hover your cursor over links to preview their true destination before clicking.
- Be wary of unsolicited attachments: Legitimate companies always direct you to their websites to download files, they don't send unexpected attachments via email.
- Notice the greeting: If you've done business with a company before, they'll know your name. Generic greetings like "Dear Valued Member" or "Hello Customer" should raise immediate suspicion.
- Watch for poor writing quality: Professional organizations employ skilled copywriters. Multiple spelling errors or awkward grammar suggests you're dealing with a scam.
- Be alert to urgency tactics: Phishing messages often create artificial time pressure to force quick, unthinking responses. They might claim you'll miss an amazing offer or face serious consequences if you don't act immediately.
TLDR:
Phishing is when cyber criminals send messages pretending to be real companies in order to trick people into revealing personal information. While cyber criminals are moving away from phishing to alternative methods like vishing, callback phishing, and help desk social engineering attacks. It’s still extremely effective and you should protect yourself from it.
The most effective way to protect yourself is to:
- Use antivirus software
- Use a social media security tool
- Educate yourself on cybersecurity awareness
- Protect your passwords
- Learn to recognize phishing messages
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Posted Dec 3, 2025, 4:11 AM UTC